For decades, since the first implementation of the German V-2 rocket, billions upon billions of dollars have been spent on missile defense. Thousands of the greatest minds on both sides of the Atlantic pondered on devising impenetrable shields for missiles, and pondered on missiles that would penetrate these shields.
As cold war heated up, and radars, computers, and control stations evolutionized, much more complex, expensive and grand-scale anti-ballistic missile projects such as Nike-X, Sentinel, Safeguard, and Soviet A-35/135 developed. New missiles, with “multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle” (MIRV) warheads were employed to overcome these defenses. In response, the grand space-based science-fiction-bordering schemes, such as “Star Wars” of the 1980's or the “Brilliant Pebbles” of the 1990s came about. These gradually morphed into the current National Missile Defense project, involving the ground-based rocket-launched interceptors and radars. Countless funds and effort, both scientific and political, continue to flow into the Defense project and countermeasures to it.
By 2003 War in Iraq, United States and its allies, such as Israel were quite successful in developing highly functional, although expensive Patriot (PAC-3) and Arrow anti-ballistic missile systems. PAC-3 was even shown somewhat effective even against tactical ballistic missiles in the war in Iraq.
However, rockets with a shorter range than tactical ballistic missiles, such as rocket artillery, were not considered to be a particular threat on the modern battlefield. Although visually impressive, such rocket artillery is not very precise, not capable of sustained fire, and can be quickly overcome or neutralized on the battlefield by the greater and more technologically-advanced forces of Cold War superpowers and their allies.
As of early 21st century, it seemed that modern armies are quite familiar with and are quite advanced in the area of missile defense. But with the war on terrorism, the battlefield changed, virtually disappearing as a concept, and literally taking the most technologically-advanced armies back to step one in missile defense. After decades of tremendous investments into complex missile defense, the simplest of rockets, powered by fertilizer and sugar became one of the greatest threats to modern armies.
Mediocre in conventional battle, rocket artillery became a formidable weapon of asymmetrical warfare and terrorism—the modern kind of war. Small, hand-made from available materials and by medieval blacksmithing methods, the rockets and launchers are easily concealable, and are immeasurably cheaper, and simpler to operate than traditional cannon artillery. Lacking the precision of the cannon artillery, rockets retain comparable range and similar, or greater payload of explosives.
As military conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel demonstrate, such combination of qualities, exhibited by rocket artillery, is quite deadly, particularly when rockets are launched at relatively short range or against “soft” targets, such as army barracks, infrastructure, storage depots, or densely-populated civilian areas, such as settlements or cities. And of course, the deadliness of such attacks can be greatly enhanced with unconventional loads, prohibited by international treaties, but fair game for terrorizing outlaws.
Simple rockets, such as Palestinian Qassams, require no time-and-labor-consuming installations. Nearly any covered area can be a launch site: a bush, a wall, a window in a residential building. Thus, the exact position of launch is unpredictable. Timing of launch is random. The rockets are small, light and fast. The distances are short. The crudeness of unstandardized, handmade, imperfect rockets, powered by uncontrolled, and often intermittent, nitrate-sugar reaction, make it impossible to calculate the likely trajectory of the rocket.
All of these factors make it nearly impossible for modern armies to prevent the launches of, or shoot down, these rockets. Even if it was technologically possible to shoot such a rocket down, it would require, often impossible, levels of 24/7 surveillance to detect the launch, and then the lightning coordination and speed in initiating the interception. Today it takes about 15 seconds for a launched Qassam rocket to travel from Gaza to the cities of Sderot or Askelon, in Israel. Even if interception was possible, the price of the equipment and of interception loads would exceed the cost of each incoming rocket thousands of times.
And there could be hundreds, thousands of rockets launched by the enemy in short amounts of time, dramatically multiplying already impossible efforts and odds of shooting them down. In 2006 Lebanon war, Israel was attacked by thousands of rockets launched by Hezbollah.
Some rocket types used by Hezbollah (and in use by numerous other terrorist organizations and “rogue states”), such as Chinese or Russian made Katyusha and Grad systems, are capable of launching barrages of tens of short-range missiles nearly simultaneously. Any attempt to intercept such a barrage of missiles, using existing conventional high-tech interception means, such as shooting them down individually is doomed to failure.
The most up-to-date missile-defense approach, utilized for rocket artillery and tactical ballistic missiles is “duck and cover.” In fact, Israel, the country with one of the most technologically-advanced militaries and missile-defense and notification systems in the world, has recently resorted to erecting cement walls in its cities. When air alarm sounds, giving a 10-15 second warning of the incoming rocket, citizens are supposed to “duck and cover” near such walls. Some organizations, such as schools resort to other primitive and ineffective means of protection, such as installing steel plates on the roofs. Needless to say, such means provide little physical or psychological protection from missiles and the terror they bring.
Similarly, there is little to no defense from another type of rocket—the cruise missile. While technologically complex, cruise missiles imitate simple, low-flying projectiles. Frequently, cruise missiles travel at heights, barely above treetops. At such a low height, cruise missiles avoid detection by most radar systems. Virtually undetectable, and uninterceptable by modern means, cruise missile strikes when the target is most unprepared and vulnerable, leading to the greatest amount of damage and casualties.
This element of surprise and the near lack of countermeasures for cruise missiles, terrorist-launched rocket artillery and other low-flying missiles makes them one of the greatest threats for modern armies. A US military outpost, positioned abroad, or an Israeli settlement, can build high concrete walls, install electrified gates and put armed guards along perimeter to guard against suicide bombers and guerilla attacks. But no cement wall can practically be erected high enough or be resilient enough against a rocket. And no amount of surveillance, and no active high-tech means provide reliable protection against such attack.
In light of the problems associated with traditional missile defense methods and limitations associated with prior art devices, there is a long-standing and unsatisfied need in the art for a missile shield, or a missile defense system, which would effectively neutralize low-flying missiles and could be engaged 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or be engageable within seconds.
Present invention provides a special missile-interceptor net device and a method of using nets for low-flying missile interception. Nets have been used in warfare for centuries to entangle the enemies or fence-off borders and military positions. Camouflaging nets are common. Explosive nets have been used with some success in anti-submarine and anti-personnel warfare. However, rapidly-deployable or permanently deployed net, specifically designed to shield a specific sensitive area against incoming missiles is urgently needed by US armed forces stationed in hostile environments, such as Iraq and Afghanistan and civilians such as those in Israeli cities, bombarded by thousands of Quassam rockets every year. Such nets are also urgently needed for protection of border installations and refugee camps under the threat of rocket attack, such as those in Dafur region of Africa, as well as in multitude of other locations around the world.
Ideally such net would be simple to deploy, inexpensive in maintenance and production, capable of withstanding the winds, moisture, and other rigors of long-term outdoor deployment, and unlike anti-personnel and anti-submarine explosive nets, it must have the capability of surviving an interception of single or multiple rockets mostly intact, ready for another immediate interception. The latter is particularly important for intercepting barrages of missiles, such as those fired from Katyusha and Grad systems. The present invention achieves all of these objectives and provides numerous additional benefits.